Authors: P. Sotiralis; A. Rammos; L. Trifonopoulos; G. Karaseitanidis; A. Amditis; L. Karagiannidis

Ship evacuation in response to fire or flooding hazards involves two phases: mustering, that is the reallocation of passengers from a designated area to a safer area or to the muster stations and abandoning the ship (embarkation and launching lifeboats). Evacuating a dynamic and complex environment such as a cruise vessel is a safety-critical and strictly time-bound task, which typically involves thousands of people moving within parts of the ship, assisted by a significant number of crew personnel, and a complicated decision-making process based on the evolving situation on-board and the information available to the decision makers. Timely and safe mustering and abandonment require accurate evaluation of ship’s conditions as well as estimation of remaining time. A critical review of the evacuation process due to fire or flooding from Cruise Vessels and large RoPax Vessels in terms of the existing regulatory framework, the installed life-saving appliances and the smart environment elements are presented. This paper is concluded with the future challenges and developments concerning the evacuation process.